bugs

It may be long past expiration but Internet Explorer is still being used on some computers and in cases where companies or organizations have locked themselves into technologies that depend on good ol' IE. In fact, Microsoft's browser is still installed by default on almost all Windows computers, which means it can still become a security liability, like in this new flaw that's reportedly being exploited in the wild. Microsoft's response? Wait next month for the fix.

Twitter may not have been dragged into major privacy and political scandals the way Facebook has been but it has its fair share of headaches. Most of these stem from technical problems, a.k.a. bugs, that leak users' information when they shouldn't. The latest seems to be an almost simple flaw that could match phone numbers to users by simply uploading a massive list of randomly generated numbers through the Twitter app on Android.

Squashing bugs of the software kind is no easy task. It is logistically impossible for developers to find and fix all possible bugs but users and customers do expect them to cover the most critical ones. On the flip side, developers and companies can only hope that users report the bugs they come across rather than exploit them for personal gain. That doesn't always happen, which is why bug bounties were born. Now OnePlus is opening not one but two such programs to stop this year's two massive breaches from happening again.

That didn't take long. Windows 10 updates have become somewhat of a joke, breaking as many things as it tries to fix, all despite Microsoft's stated goal of making Windows more secure and more stable with its "Windows as a Service" strategy. The company has just started rolling out the latest and last major feature update for the year and while there have been no major file-deleting issues reported so far, smaller issues are starting to pop up just as the newest Windows 10 makes its way into more and more computers.

Earlier this year, Apple was put on the hot seat for a bug in its new Group FaceTime feature that practically allowed anyone to spy on an iPhone or iPad user by simply making and then dropping a covert call. Now it seems that the Android world has something that may be more sinister and more inconspicuous. Thanks to a bug found in Google's, Samsung's, and other OEM's camera apps, an almost inconspicuous app can secretly spy on the owner using their own phone's cameras. And all the malicious app needs is to be granted data storage permissions.

If recent developments, or lack thereof, with Android Auto is any indicator, Google's thrust in the in-vehicle infotainment market might be on the decline. It promised an upgraded Android Auto experience last I/O 2019 in May but missed the deadline to roll Assistant on Android Auto properly with Android 10. If that weren't bad enough, users have started experiencing problems not only with the app itself but now with Google Assistant running on Android Auto as well.

Despite the proliferation of instant messaging services, our mobile-centric culture is still dependent on good old text messages. But what if those text messages never reached their recipients or only months after they made any sense? That's the rather strange situation that many in the US just experienced when Valentine's messages they sent months ago only reached their intended targets in November in the middle of the night.

Scams have been in existence from the earliest days of human civilization but technology and the Internet have given less conscientious agents a broader and longer reach than ever before. Such scams cove a wide variety of techniques and consequences, ranging from the annoying to the destructive. A new breed of scams is now starting to go around affecting Firefox users that, while not entirely destructive, may appear so legitimate that it will scare users into some harmful reaction.

Apple has a rather impressive and laudable record when it comes to the adoption of its latest iOS and macOS updates. But while that mostly applies to newer iPhones, iPads, and Macs, the story doesn't always look good for older ones as users feel less inclined to risk breaking their phones in an update. Now, however, Apple is doing the unusual and giving iPhone 5 users an ultimatum to update to iOS 10.3.4 before November 3 or risk losing access anything that connects to the Internet.

The Pixel 4 is finally landing in owners' eager hands but, just as it was during the announcement, reception of Google's latest premium flagship is turning up to be a mixed bag. On the one hand, it delivers the usual serving of an excellent and pristine Android experience. On the other hand, some of its novel features are giving users concern which, in turn, is causing Google to promise more updates than it regularly does.

Although not as damning as the fate that awaits Huawei, Samsung is facing its own ordeal that could damage its reputation in the financial and security industries. Its ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint was already long overdue but is now proving to be less secure and accurate as it was promised to be. Samsung has already begun rolling out an update that addresses the latest complaint but, while swift, might be a bit too late to assure some banks for a while.

It has been almost two weeks since we last heard of an iOS 13 update which suggests that things may have finally settled down a bit. Of course, the battle against bugs and security holes never really ends and, fortunately' neither do the rollout of software updates. Perhaps a bit earlier than initially planned, Apple has released iOS 13.1.3 that continues the march of fixes to bugs that were sadly never caught during testing.